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ENDURE Network of Advisers 3rd Newsletter, 21th October 2011 Dear adviser, Welcome to the third newsletter for the ENDURE Network of Advisers (ENA)! During the last months, several interesting developments regarding ENDURE and advisers have taken place. Advising for IPM: New challenges - an IPM workshop for advisers you are invited! For the first time ever, ENDURE and the ENDURE Network of Advisers, with the support of INRA (France), are organising a European workshop for advisers on IPM.

will be held at ACTA in Paris on December 7th and 8th, 2011. The goal of the workshop is to:

o Establish a European network of advisers on the implementation of IPM serving as: a place to share experiences and knowledge a forum where new opportunities and visions can be expressed

o Collectively identify and address the challenges IPM implementation poses to farm advisers. A pre-agenda of the workshop is shown on page 3-4 below. Please note that a few changes may still occur.

The workshop has a maximum capacity of 50 people, so hurry to sign up! If more than a total 50 people sign up, a maximum of 3 persons from each country will be allowed to attend, as we want as broad a representation as possible. In return for your active participation, ENDURE, the ENDURE Network of Advisers and INRA will cover the costs of meeting facilities, coffee breaks, dinner on December 7th and 1 night accommodation in a hotel in Paris. However, we hope that participants can cover their own travel costs.

This newsletter will give you information on:

Advising for IPM: New challenges a workshop for advisers you are invited! PURE New project puts IPM into practice on a European level Advisers reflecting on ENDURE and IPM Inside story: Germany, pesticide legislation and IPM Future IPM-related events Feedback to ENDURE and to ENA

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Register now! If you want to participate in this workshop, send an e-mail to Rolf Thostrup Poulsen (rtp@vfl.dk) as soon as possible. The deadline for preliminary registration is Monday November 7th, 2011. Please include in your email:

- your professional affiliation and full contact details - a few lines describing your current work and your interest in IPM - your area(s) of specialization, including which types of cropping systems you are dealing with.

We will review your responses. By November 11th, we will decide whether or not we have to limit participation, and we will send a message back to everybody interested indicating if they are able to participate or not. Please note that registration for the meeting is considered binding after November 11th! If you must cancel, please let us know immediately. If you have signed up for the event and do not show up, or if your late cancellation means that INRA will have to pay for unused hotel rooms or meals, then we may have to charge you for the costs of accommodation and meals. If you want to take advantage of the free hotel offer, do not book a hotel room for yourself for the night of December 7th! INRA will book rooms for all participants. We will of course let you know about the hotel(s) chosen well in advance of the workshop. Preparation needed This is a workshop. We expect your active engagement during the two days. More specifically, we want you to prepare and be ready to talk about the following:

Examples of noteworthy IPM practice for relevant cropping systems in your country The challenges advisers face when encouraging low pesticide input management practices The barriers (of any kind) to IPM implementation you encounter as an adviser The conditions required to encourage transition toward reduced reliance on pesticides ENDURE Information Centre and ENDURE IPM Training Guide Other specific tools and resources needed to go further

You can find ENDURE Information Centre and the ENDURE IPM Training Guide on the ENDURE Website. We are looking forward to hearing from you and to seeing you at the workshop!

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Wednesday December 7

Moderator: Jens Erik Jensen, VFL

13:30 13:40 Welcome, outline & goals of meeting (Jens Erik Jensen, VFL)

13:40 14:10 IPM, National Action Plans and advisers (Marco Barzman, INRA), examples from France (Philippe Delval, ACTA), Germany (JKI or German adviser) and Denmark (Jens Erik Jensen & Poul Henning Petersen, VFL).

14:10 14:30 Update and feedback on ENDURE tools for advisers (Huub Schepers, DLO)

14:30 14:50 Advising for IPM: new challenges (Marianne Cerf, INRA)

14:50 16:00 Discussion: reactions and short presentations by advisers on noteworthy IPM initiatives and advising approaches in their country

16:00 16:20 Coffee break

16:20 17:50 Break-out groups (arranged according to cropping system) on the following possible discussion topics:

What tools are ready and should be further emphasized to implement IPM in our cropping systems?

How can the ENDURE tools (Information Centre, Training Guide, ENA Newsletter, Website) be improved?

How can we learn from each other?

What are the barriers to IPM implementation encountered?

17:50 18:00 Break

18:00 18:30 Plenary: Conclusions from break-out groups and discussion

19:30 21:30 Group dinner in Paris

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Thursday December 8

9:00 9:20 Danish experience with group-based advisory activities, stakeholder dialogue and positive use of entrepreneur farmers to promote IPM (Poul Henning Petersen and Jens Erik Jensen, VFL)

9:20 9:50 Dutch experience with collective multi-stakeholder approaches in the Farming for Future initiative (Frank Wijnands, DLO)

9:50 10:15 Reactions and discussion on the following possible questions: Which advisory methods tend to be effective and successful in promoting change at the farm level?

How can we better take stakeholders into account in future advising?

What are opportunities and barriers when dealing with farmers and stakeholders?

What is needed to create situations where new opportunities can emerge?

How do we see the future IPM landscape?

Which aspects of extension require further research or development in our countries?

What should be the status and future of the ENDURE Network of Advisers How useful is it? How can we make the ENDURE Network of Advisers more active and interactive? How can we strengthen our links with key advisory bodies in EU countries, particularly Eastern, Central and Southern European countries?

10:15 10:30 Coffee break

10:30 11:30 Break-out groups on the same questions as above

11:30 12:30 Plenary: Conclusions from break-out groups and discussion

12:30 - 13:00 Wrap-up and evaluation of the meeting. Should we meet again next year? If yes, where and when?

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New project puts IPM into practice on a European level

A new 4-year EU-funded project with the acronym PURE has been launched this year. The acronym stands

and risk f the project is to provide practical IPM solutions to reduce dependence on pesticides in selected major farming systems in Europe, thereby contributing to a reduction of the risks to human health and the environment and facilitating the implementation of the pesticides package legislation while ensuring continued food production of sufficient quality PURE will provide IPM solutions and a practical toolbox for their implementation in key European farming systems (annual arable and vegetable, perennial, and protected crops) in which reduction of pesticide use and better control of pests will have major effects. The six farming systems represent 66% of the total crop production area and 87% of the pesticide consumption in Europe. The systems are:

Winter wheat based rotations

Grain maize based rotations

Field vegetables (focus on Brassica)

Pomefruit

Grapevine

Vegetables grown under cover and greenhouses: Tomato based system

The project will not only deal with theoretical IPM-solutions, but actually test them in the field for the 6 cropping systems. There is a possibility to test the solutions both on an experfields. By performing experiments for several years, it is the intention to learn from and adapt the suggested solutions during the course of the project. In figure 1, the design-assessment-adjustment cycle that will be used is shown. By using this cycle, continuous validation and improvement of the IPM solutions is ensured.

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Figure 1 Design-assessment-adjustment cycle for the six farming systems. Task 3 (a and b) provides the experimental background for assessing suggested IPM-solutions both on station and on farm. For more information about PURE, visit the official PURE Website

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Advisers reflecting on ENDURE and IPM As you read in the previous newsletter, two of the advisers attending the ENDURE IPM Conference in November in Paris, shared their views and impressions of the conference, on ENDURE and IPM. Several other advisers did however express their thoughts, and we will therefore present a few more in this newsletter, even if almost a year has passed since the Paris conference:

By: Harm Brinks DLV Plant BV The Netherlands An active network of advisors to make the Endure dream come through? At the conference in Paris in November, advisors were a minority in the public that visited the Endure conference. But we found each other and I had quite some nice talks with some of you. The ambition of Endure is to be a centre of excellence for information on Integrated Pest Management. The ultimate goal of course is that the information is used by the farmers in the European countries, to make agriculture even more sustainable in the future. Advisors play an important role in the chain from knowledge development to implementation in practice. This was announced several times at the conference. An important tool to facilitate this process, and output of the Endure project, is the knowledge information centre. This tool was presented at the conference and tested by the advisors present. I would say it is a prototype, a good start but still things can be improved. It would be nice if we could ask questions, discuss with each other. I would like to discuss with others about the desired functionality of the information centre and how the information could be presented. I think this tool

input is selected by research. And to realize this all, an active role of us,

for our advisory products to the farmers. Of course I have quite some sources of

value of the Endure information centre could be a source of interesting

base. International contacts to other advisors and researchers are in my opinion a crucial factor to create a vivid and active network with added value. And that is what we have to do ourselves, but it would be very nice if Endure could facilitate this process. Several tools were presented at the conference, interesting form me were, among others, Eurowheat.org, a very interesting site with a lot of information about pest management in wheat and an online tool for weed control with low doses, developed by our Danish colleagues. Although advisory services get more and more private and we become not only colbe of benefit for us all. It is up to us, but it would be helpful if Endure can help us, also by investing some of the available money in our network.

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By: Carlos Lozano Centro de Protección Vegetal, Gobierno de Aragón Spain On the whole, I consider that my participation in the final meeting of the Endure

been a very positive experience. I was already familiar with the Endure way of working, the activities carried out during the last four years and some of the future aspects. Nevertheless, during these days in the capital of France I have been able to meet a group of European advisors that work in Integrated Pest Management which has permitted me to know their ideas, preoccupations and working methods. If I had to stress the two aspects that interested me the most of those dealt with at the conference, I would doubtlessly emphasize those relative to the Information Centre and the Training Guide for Integrated Pest Management. I think that the implementation of the information centre is very important. However, the success of this feature depends on our joint effort in continuously uploading more documents that are useful for dissemination of knowledge in our respective areas of work while being scientifically precise. I would like to stress

can be very interesting to colleagues with similar problems. It would also be very profitable if other southern European countries would, little by little, incorporate their productions. In my opinion our efforts will not be made the most of unless we can manage to make the farmers understand, assume and then put in practice the principles of Integrated Pest Management. For this reason, I think that the Training Guide is very useful, even though this document needs to be adapted to the different idiosyncrasies of farmers and advisors in the various European regions. We can all contribute to making the European Network of Advisers gradually more powerful, with a greater number of members and, overall, with a greater amount of interactions between us, whether periodical meetings or contact through the web, and I want to encourage you all to do so. These exchanges can become an important contribution to the improvement of our work, giving us more tools to apply in our daily activities.

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Inside story: Germany, pesticide legislation and IPM As one of the major countries in Europe, it is interesting to follow the development of pesticide legislation and implementation of IPM in Germany. Bernd Hommel, Bernd Freier, Jörn Strassemeyer and Dietmar Rossberg from the Julius Kühn-Institut in Kleinmachnow, Berlin, are all key persons in this development. Together, they have created an article that gives an overview of current and future actions in relation to German pesticide legislation and IPM. This story covers the highlights of this article. The use of pesticides in Germany is regulated in a comprehensive manner that ensures a high level of safety and protection. The pesticide approval process, regulations on the sale and use of pesticides, and requirements for pesticide manufacturers, distributors, professional users, advisers and competent authorities (Plant Protection Law and other area of law relating to plant protection) are the principle instruments of pesticide regulation. At the core of national implementation of the changes specified in the EU Pesticides Package are the new German Plant Protection Act and the accompanying regulations, which are expected in 2011 or 2012. The current German National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Pesticides (NAP), which has been in force since 2008, is at present under review and revision with due regard to

the provisions of the Sustainable Use Directive 2009/128/EC.

the NEPTUN project to survey pesticide use realistically

o Randomly chosen farms are used to gather information about pesticide use, quantified as Treatment Frequency Index (TFI)

o All reports can be downloaded from the German NAP homepage the Reference Farms Network to get more information about pesticides use

o A project that surveys 85 farms with a total of more than 700 fields for data on pesticide use in primary crops and other information relevant to crop protection

o All pesticide treatments are evaluated to determine the actual pesticide use intensities (based on the TFplant protection services.

o pesticide needed to ensure crops are successful, not least in regard to their economic viability

o far away the reference farms are from this optimum (see table 1).

o Results indicate that only 10-15 % of all applications can contribute to lower the pesticide use,

Farms Network Crop Winter wheat Winter barley Winter oilseed rape 2007 88.7 94.8 87.7

2008 85.8 84.9 81.8

2009 89.8 86.0 87.4

Total 88.0 87.3 85.6

Figure 2 The national pesticide action plan in Germany focuses on reducing the risk associated with and intensity of use of plant protection products.

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the Demonstration Farms Network to demonstrate crop or sector specific guidelines for integrated pest management (IPM)

o The Demonstration Farms Network was launched in November 2010 o

minimizing risk and dependency of pesticide use. The network is coordinated by JKI o

methods, equipment and to compensate production risks. o From 2013, more than 20 demonstration farms covering most of Germany will participate in

the Network. the risk indicator SYNOPS to check risk development in pesticide use annually and to identify hot spots. The SYNOPS model (Synoptic Evaluation Model for Pesticides) is used to measure progress towards the 25% goal of risk reduction until 2020 in the NAP by estimating relative changes in potential risks to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems associated with the use of pesticides. Different data sources can be used in SYNOPS as input for pesticide use. Application strategies can be derived from NEPTUN surveys or the Reference Farms Network for regional risk analysis or the domestic pesticide sales volumes are used for risk assessments on national level. SYNOPS is used to cross-link these data with known characteristics of the pesticide products, as specified in their registrations and instructions for use. After detailed consideration of the uses of a given pesticide, the model calculates bioavailability parameters of the pesticide in three compartments: soil, field margins and surface waters. The calculated exposure parameters are correlated with the eco-toxicological effects of the active substance on a given target organism. Figure 2 shows the annual progress towards the 25% goal since 2006. It seems that fungicide use will mostly constrain the intended target of 25%.

Red

uctio

n of

SY

NO

PS [%

]

-100%

-80%

-60%

-40%

-20%

0%

20%

targe t -25 %

HERBICIDES FUNGICIDES INSECTICIDESaquatic terrestric aquatic terrestric aquatic terrestric

2006200720082009

Figure 3. Developments in the pesticide risk indicator SYNOPS for aquatic and terrestrial reference organisms in Germany since 2006 (baseline: statistical means from 1996 to 2005; source: http://nap.jki.bund.de).

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Implementation of IPM In Germany, the principles for IPM have been known for many years. Since 1987, the German plant protection legislation has taken the concept and principles of IPM into account, as it says, that all farmers have to act according to good agricultural practice which, among other things, means that the principles of IPM have to be taken into consideration. IPM is implemented through the NAP. The Demonstration Farms Network is one pillar, but the most important is the development of the crop or sector specific guidelines on IPM. These guidelines provide the farmer with sufficient information to grow crops according to the principles of IPM. Currently guidelines for fruit, wine and agricultural crops are under development. The guidelines have to be approved by the steering committee for the German NAP. It is not the intention to turn the IPM-guidelines into law, but rather to provide the farmer with solid growing instructions and recommendations that the farmer can follow, if relevant on the individual farm. Future IPM-related events The intention is to have a list of international events of interest to advisers in Europe. Please send us information on such events, and we will include it in future newsletters. Currently, we are aware of the following events in 2012:

25th German Conference on Weed Biology and Control, Braunschweig, Germany, www.unkrauttagung.de

7th International IPM Symposium, 27-29 March 2012, Memphis, Tennessee, USA, www.ipmcenters.org/ipmsymposium12

Cereals, 13-14 June, 2012, England, more info on www.cerealsevent.co.uk DLG-Feldtage, 19-21 June, 2012, Germany, please refer to the website www.dlg-feldtage.de

Please also refer to the ENDURE website which has more frequent updates to lists of events. If you know about other IPM-related events for the coming year, please let us know so we may include them in the next newsletter. Membership status of ENDURE Network of Advisers as of 14th October 2011 Country No. of

advisers

Austria 1 Belgium 6 Bulgaria 2 Germany 11 Denmark 18 Spain 17 Estonia 1 Finland 3 France 17 Greece 1 Hungary 4 Ireland 5 Italy 5 Lithuania 1 Luxemburg 1 The Netherlands 16 Norway 6 Portugal 1 Romania 2 Slovenia 2 Sweden 8 United Kingdom 40 Other countries outside EU

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Total 177

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Feedback to the newsletter and the ENDURE Network of Advisers We are still extremely interested in any kind of feedback from you as an adviser. Feel free to contact any one of us mentioned on the list below. We have indicated which countries we come from in order to facilitate feedback in languages other than English. We are aware of the language barriers within Europe, but unfortunately, the ENDURE network does not have the resources to translate everything into many languages. Therefore the language of the ENA will be English. The amount of feedback was limited for the first and second newsletter, and we hope to get more comments in the future. You can comment on general topics by emailing us, or you can communicate with a group of advisers with similar interest to yours (e.g. vegetables or pesticide resistance) by indicating that you want us to forward the mail to ENA members with a certain interest. Several ENA members have indicated that they want the membership list to be public, so that they may interact with each other in a more informal way. We will however not do that unless you authorize us to make your address details public to other ENA members. Please send an email to Rolf Thostrup Poulsen (rtp@vfl.dk) if you want to be on the public list. Please help spread the word of the ENA by forwarding this newsletter to your colleagues who may find more information about the ENA here: http://www.endure-network.eu/what_is_endure/endure_network_of_advisers They may sign up by leaving their e-mail address at this link: http://www.survey-xact.dk/LinkCollector?key=8JHS7WWJ3K3N and subsequently filling out the questionnaire that they will receive by e-mail. In the table on the previous page you see the current status of members of ENA in the different countries in EU. If you think your country is under- colleagues to sign up! It is free! If you have relevant materials regarding the implementation of IPM that you want to share with the network or if you have some thoughts regarding the next newsletter, then please send them to Jens Erik Jensen. And if you have documents or other materials that you think should be available in the EIC, then please send them to one of the representatives mentioned below. Contacts / ENDURE representatives regarding the ENA: Spain: Jesus Avilla, UdL email: jesus.avilla@irta.cat Italy: Maurizio Sattin, CNR email: maurizio.sattin@ibaf.cnr.it Hungary: Jozsef Kiss, SZIE email: jozsef.kiss@mkk.szie.hu France: Phillippe Delval, ACTA, email: Philippe.Delval@acta.asso.fr United Kingdom: Bill Clark, Rothamsted Research, email: bill.clark@rothamsted.ac.uk Germany: Silke Dachbrodt-Saaydeh & Bernd Hommel, JKI, email: Silke.Dachbrodt-Saaydeh@jki.bund.de & Bernd.Hommel@jki.bund.de The Netherlands: Huub Schepers, WUR, email: huub.schepers@wur.nl Poland: Edward Arseniuk, IHAR, email: e.arseniuk@ihar.edu.pl Denmark: Rolf Thostrup Poulsen & Jens Erik Jensen, DAAS, email rtp@vfl.dk & jnj@vfl.dk